Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/343

This page needs to be proofread.

LZTUBGICAL


306


ZJTVROT


To round off the line of thought we have been pur- suing, a few more observations are called for. (a) The music which accompanies non-litiu*gical firno- tions of Catholic worship is usually and accuratelv styled extra-liturgical music. As a matter of fact, legislation affecting the liturgy does not ipso facto ap- ply equally to legitimate extra-litur^ical functions. And consequently the more or less rigid jprohibition of certain things during the solemn offices of the Qiurch does not necessarily ban such things from de- votions such as the Way of the Cross, the Month of Mary, etc. To take an example, singing in the ver- nacular is prohibited as part of liturgical functions. As has been pointed out, music in liturgical functions is an integrant and not a purely ornamental part thereof, whereas in extra-liturgical functions *it is al- together secondarv and accidental, never exacted by the ceremony, and its main purpose is to entertain the faithful devoutly in Church or to furnish them a pleasing spiritual relaxation after the prolonged ten- sion of a sermon, or whatever pravers they have been reciting together. Hence the style of extrarliturgical music IS susceptible of greater freedom, though within such limits as are demanded by respect Tot God's house, and the holiness of the prayer it accompanies. As a sort of general rule it may be laid down that, since extra-liturgical ceremonies ought to partake as much as possible of the externals, as well as of the interior spirit of litui^ical ones, avoiding whatsoever is con- tr^try to the holiness, solemnity, and nobility of the act of worship as intended by the Church, so true extra^liturgical music ought absolutely to exclude whatsoever is profane and theatrical, assuming as far as possible the character, without the extreme se- venty of liturgical music.

(b) Whatever music is not suitable for liturgical or extra-liturgical functions ought to be banished from the churches. But such music is not for that reason to I e called profane. There is a distinction to be drawn. There is a style of music that belong to the theatre and the dance, and that aims at giving pleasure and delij^ht to the senses. This is profane music as distinct fix>m sacred music. But there is an- other style of music, grave, and serious, though not sacred because not used in worship, yet partaking of some of the qualities of sacred music, and drawing its ideas and inspiration from things that have to do with rel^ion and worship. Such is the music of what are known as sacred oratorios, and other compositions of a religious character, in which the words are taken from the Bible or at times from the liturgy itself. To this class belong the mighty Masses of Bach, Havdn, Beethoven, and other classical authors, Verdi's Re- quiem", Rossini's "Stabat Mater", etc., all of them works of the highest musical merit, but whicn, because of their outward vehicle and extraordinary length, can never be received within the Church. They are suited, like the oratorios, to recreate religiously and artistic- ally audiences at great musical concerts. By way of special distinction, music of this nature is usually des- ignated religious music.

De Santi, La musicd a serviqio dd euUo in CiviUh Caitolioa (September, 1888), 652-671; Iokm, La Munea a aervigio dd euUo CatioliooAhid. (October, 1888). 169-183; I dem. La mtMtca a Bervigio deUa liturgia, ibid. (December. 1888), 670-688; Obvaert. Let OrigineB du Chant Liturgique de VEglise Latine (Ghent, 1800); Gastou^, Les origints du Chant Romain (Paris, 1907) ; Wtatt, SL Oregory and the Gregorian Music (London, 1904).

Anoelo de Santi.

Litargical Oolours. See Colours, Liturgical.

Liturgy. — ^The various CHiristian liturgies are de- scribed each under its own name. (See Alexandrine Liturgy; Ambrosian Liturgy; Antiochene Lit- urgy; Celtic Rite; Clementine Liturgy, treated in Clement I; CJonstantinople, Rite op; Galucan Rite; Jerusalem, Liturgy of; Mozarabic Rite; Sarum Rite; Syrian Rite; Syro- Jacobite Liturgy.)


In this article they are considered onlv from the point of view of their relation to one another in the most general sense, and an account is given of what is known about the growth of a fixed lituigy as such in the early Church.

I. Definition. — ^Lituiigy (X«Tov/>7fa) is a Greek com- posite word meaning originiJly a public duty, a service to the state undertoken bv a citizen. Its elements are Xeirof (from Xe(6f =. XaM, people) meaninji; public, and ipyta (obsolete in the present stem, used in future Ip^*, etc.), to do. From this we have \wrovpy^, "a man who performs a public duty", "a public ser- vant", often used as equivalent to the Roman lietor; then lUiTovpyha, "to do such a duty", \eiro6f>yif/taf its performance, and \eirovpyta, the public dut^ itself. At Athens the Xetrovpyla was the public service per- formed by the wealthier citizens at their own expense, such as the office of gymnasiarch, who superintended the gymnasium, that of choreauSf who paid the singers of a chorus in the theatre, that of the hesti€Uor, who gave a banquet to his tribe, of the trierarchuSf who pro- vided a warship for the state. The meaning of the word liturgy is then extended to cover any general ser- vice of a public kind. In the Septua^t it (and the verb \eiTovpy4ta) is used for the pubhc service of the temple (e. g., Ex., xxxviii, 27; xxxix, 12, etc.). Thence it comes to have a religious sense as the func- tion of the priests, the ritual service of the temple (e. g., Joel, i, 9; ii, 17, etc.). In the New Testament this religious meaning has become definitely established. In Luke, i, 23, Zachary goes home when "the days of his liturgy" (eU ijfUpai rfjt \eiTovpytas a^oO) are over. In Heb., viii, 6, the high priest of the New Law "has obtained a better liturgy ", that is a better kind of pub- lic religious service than that of the Temple.

So in Christian use hturgy meant the public official service of the Clitirch, that corresponded to the official service of the Temple in the Old Law. We must now distinguish two senses in which the word was and is still commonly used. These two senses often lead to confusion. On the one hand, liturgy often means the whole complex of official services, all the rites, cere- monies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church, as op- posed to private devotions. In this sense we speak of the arrangement of all these services in certain set forms (including the canonical hours, administration of sacraments, etc.), used officially by any local church, as the liturgy of such a church — ^the Liturgy of Anti- och, the Roman Liturgy, and so on. So liturgy means rite; we speak indifferently of the Byzantine Rite or the Byzantine Liturgy. In the same sense we distin- guish the official services from others by calling them fiturgical; those services are liturgical which are con- tained in any of the official books (see Liturgical Books) of a nte. In the Roman CJhurch, for instance, Compline is a liturgical service, the Rosary is not. Hie other sense of the word litur^, now the common one in all Eastern (lurches, restricts it to the chief official service only — the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, which in our rite we call the Mass. This is now prac- tically the only sense in which \etrovpyta is used in Greek, or in its derived forms (e. g., Arabic alr-litur^ giah) by any Eastern Christian. When a C^reek speaks of the "Holy Liturgy" he means only the Eu- cnaristic Service. For the sake of clearness it is per- haps better for us too to keep the word to this sense, at any rate in speaking of Eastern ecclesiastical matters: for instance, not to speak of the Byzantine canonical hours as lituracal services. Even in Western Rites the word "oflacial" or "canonical" will do as well as "liturgical" in the general sense, so that we too may use Liturgy only for the Holy Eucharist. It should be noted also that, whereas we may speak of our Mass quite correctly as the Liturgy, we should never use the word Mass for the Eucharistic Sacrifice in any Eastern rite. Mass (niisaa) is the name for that service in the Latin Rites on! v. It has never been used either in Lat«